Wednesday, July 21, 2010

My auto adventure

My new semester started from 23rd of July but I reached college on 18th night and thus all this fuss started.

I am tired of answering the question "Tu itni zaldi college kyun chala gaya?" So for all those people who are going to ask me the same question, this post carries the answer.

The auto in the title is not for the word "automatic" but has been used for the "auto ricksaw".

The whole adventure started like this.

"bhaiya old delhi chaloge?""150""I always go in 100""not less than 140""chalo 110 le lena""last 130""Not a penny more than 120""sit"

It was around 7.10 pm and my train was scheduled to depart at 8.15 pm. After spending a tiring month in Delhi, finally I was going home. My ecstasy was on highest level. I looked into my watch and told the driver that I had my train at 8.15 and so I had less than an hour to reach the station. Old Delhi station is approximately 21 km from IIT campus. He told that if there is no traffic, we can reach well on time.

But traffic light was not in my favour. We encountered red light at two consecutive turns and thus we were just 2 kilometres from our start in first 15 minutes. It was now time to panic. But somehow I kept calm. I started talking with the driver and within a few seconds I found that he was from my state only. Bingo! I talked to him about a few recent happenings of my state and soon we got acquainted. I was successful in pursuing him to break the signals on next turns. I also told him to take all the shortcuts he knew.

Next turn was near Green Park, a fairly crowded area. The driver was flying the auto and we broke the first signal of our way. I kept him motivating with praising his driving skills now and then. Soon we crossed the India Gate and I found my auto on the Tilak Bridge, the bridge joining new Delhi and old Delhi. It was around 7.50 when we entered the crowded old Delhi Chandani chowk area (Delhi 6). The way to station is such that you have to take a round of The Red Fort. It was 8.00 exactly and I was just a one and half kilometres from the station, hardly a journey of 2 mins. We had to take left from the next turn and then it was just a min of drive and it was done. We were on the turn in jiffy.But........

Why the hell the municipal people can't take care of the stray dogs! A stray dog was hit by a car and thus the turn was blocked. Bulls**t.... I looked into my wrist watch and shook my head. "Nothing can be done now", I said with a sigh. But the driver said that we can still make it. He took right instead of left. Soon I realised that we were on a one side traffic route and all the vehicles seemed to be coming from opposite side only i.e. we were in "NO ENTRY". Fast moving cars and bikes honking their horns hard at us were passing us. Every now and then it seemed that we were going to bump into some car.Finally we are arrived at the station. I gave the driver 130 rupees, 10 rupees extra for his good job and also I shook hand with him. It was already 8.05 Ten mins to departure of the train. I ran towards the display board to find the platform number of my train. But there was no display board around. I looked for it here and there but could not find it. I asked coolies but they even didn't know. It seemed to me that this train of mine has been recently started. It was 8.10 now and I was not knowing on which platform to go. I decided to check each and every platform.

But even after that I could not find that train and I was out of senses by now.It was now 8.13. Suddenly I saw an old TTE. I went to to him and showing him my ticket I asked "Uncle! Do you know from which platform this train will leave?" He looked the ticket and with a smile he replied, "Beta! you are on a wrong station. Your train was from Hazrat Nizamuddin station and It must have left the station by now."

And thus, no where to go but college, I came here earlier than all of you.